Jean Ann Graham

A Cross-Cultural Study of the Communication of Extra-Verbal Meaning by Gesture

Abstract English and Italian encoders were asked to communicate two-dimensional shapes to decoders of their own culture, with and without the use of hand gestures, for materials of high and low verbal codability. The decoders drew what they thought the shapes were and these were rated by English and Italian judges, for similarity to the originals. Higher accuracy scores were obtained by both the English and the Italians, when gestures were allowed, for materials of both high and low codability; but the effect of using gestures was greater for materials of low codability. Improvement in performance when gestures were allowed was greater for the Italians than for the English for both levels of codability. An analysis of the recorded verbal utterances has shown that the detriment in communication accuracy with the elimination of gestures cannot be attributed to disruption of speech performance; rather, changes in speech content occur indicating an increased reliance on verbal means of conveying spatial infor...

The central Europe experiment: Looking at persons and looking at objects

Gaze at objects, another person, and background was measured for fifteen dyads which constituted five different experimental groups in which task and situational factors were varied. The findings were that background stimuli had an unreliable effect on gaze; a very simple object relevant to the subjects task attracted a great deal of gaze and greatly reduced gaze at the other person. This effect was even stronger with a complex relevant object, where visual attention was almost completely transferred from the other person to the object. There was evidence of forces to avoid too much gaze at the other person. These findings suggested the possibility of postulating some new function of gaze in addition to information-seeking, or the possibility of an explanation in terms of the approach-avoidance model of gaze (Argyle & Dean, 1965).

The effects of cosmetics on person perception

The study reported here forms part of an investigation of what psychological benefits, if any, exist for the user of cosmetics.

The salience, equivalence, and sequential structure of behavioral elements in different social situations

The aim of this series of experiments was to examine the salience, equivalence, and sequential structure of social behavior in a range of different social situations by developing and adapting methods used by linguists and ethologists for use in a social psychological context. Encounters in particular situations were taken to consist of a number of elements of behavior that may be grouped into structured episodes within encounters (Argyle 1976). This was not a hypothesis-testing study, but rather an exploration of the use of techniques derived from linguistics and ethology to sequences of human social behavior.

The Goal Structure of Situations

An empirical method for analysing the goal structure within and between persons in different social situations is described. The method involves establishing the main goals of occupants of situational roles and then finding out how the different goals inter-relate in terms of degree and type/direction of conflict and compatibility. Principal components analyses were carried out on ratings of importance of goals of those in different situational roles. Criteria of high factor loadings combined with high mean importance ratings were used to produce the main higher order goals for each of the roles. The goals for the six roles studied were, in each case except one: social acceptance and developing relationships, own well being and achieving a specific situational task goal. However, the precise nature of these goals is rather different in the different situations. Inter-relationship of goals was studied using ratings of conflict or compatibility between pairs of goals within and across roles of each situation. The results were used to describe the goal structures of the different situations. The situation with the most conflict between goals was, as expected, the complaint. Ways were suggested in which knowledge of the goal structure, particularly the points of conflict, could help with skilful handling of potentially difficult social situations